Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

I flicked through the pages of the topmost issue.

Skiers in Alta, Utah.

Oxen in Schneeburg, Austria.

‘It can’t be anywhere you’ve been before — nowhere with memories,’ Victor went on. ‘How you imagine the place is what’s important. That’s the only way it can belong to you.’

Boulder Peak, Idaho.

Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire.

Diamond Rock, Martinique.

‘Do you understand the exercise?’

‘I think so. But—’

‘No buts. No evasions. Just do your best.’

Perhaps it would be like the first time I left Clydebank as a child after the Blitz. My mother took me on a coach to see my great aunt in Coldstream. I was not told what to expect, apart from a lot of countryside, so I imagined it as any five-year-old would have: a small town of grey-bricked cottages beside a river that was permanently frozen, happy people skating on the ice in special wooden clogs and drinking hot chocolate. We arrived into something greener and less magical. The Coldstream I had pictured dropped away, no longer mine.

‘I don’t need to know which place you’ve chosen,’ Victor said, ‘but when I come back in January, I want you to be ready to start calling it to mind. If you can visualise this place when you start feeling anxious, centre yourself there when you need to, then we might be able to bring your dosage down, over time.’ And he reclined, scraping the dull leather caps of his shoes together. ‘I’ll bet that journey up to Scotland isn’t so bad if you can go first-class, you know. Six hours on a train won’t kill you.’

The news came in an envelope from my mother. She had written to me with her usual gossip about the happenings in her building and reports of my father’s foul mood, with one last paragraph pleading for my company at Christmas time. And, clipped to the last page, was a cutting from the newspaper, on which she had written in the margin: Saw this in the Herald yesterday. Sorry, love xx

HOLDEN — HENRY. Peacefully, at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, on Monday 11th December 1961, Henry Mackintosh Holden (artist and lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art), aged 78 years. A generous and loving man who will be sadly missed. Funeral service at Luss Parish Church, Dumbartonshire, his family’s village, on 18th December at 10.30 a.m. No flowers, please.

The funeral was three days away. I called my mother to tell her I would be coming home for a spell. Her delight was tempered by the fact that I would not arrive until after I had paid my respects to Henry. She managed to hide the disappointment in her voice. ‘All right, love. You do what you feel’s best,’ she said. ‘We’ll have the place ready for you.’

It was a very long journey to Luss. I booked myself onto the earliest train to Glasgow, first-class, reasoning that I would need the comfort and the quiet of the roomier carriages. On the way, I read most of a novel and looked through the images in the National Geographic issues I had packed for the trip. It had been a few days since I had seen Victor, and I had still not decided on a photograph to call my own — in truth, they had barely left more than a fleeting impression on me, the sort of wonderment you glean from browsing a jeweller’s window. But I vowed to keep trying.

From Glasgow, I took a connecting train to Balloch, at the foot of Loch Lomond. My suitcase was so heavy that, after a few minutes lugging it, the joints of my elbows crackled with pain. The train was crowded with families and I had to walk through several carriages just to find a seat. The stolid darkness of the Clyde and its surrounds went by the windows, familiar and yet not. It was so late when I arrived at the station that I missed the last bus out of Balloch. I stayed the night at a nearby inn, and, waking early, traipsed along the road with my suitcase to catch the rusting single-decker that would carry me into Luss.

Still, I managed to be late. The service had already started when I got to the church. I stowed my case in the antechamber behind a stack of hassocks and crept down the aisle as quietly as I could. Two young girls were playing ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ on recorders by the altar. Half the pews were empty. A shining casket rested on a plinth with a single wreath of heather. I found a space beside an old man in a faded suit adorned with medals. He nodded at me soberly, and I shared my hymnal with him when it came time to sing. After Henry’s widow read out a poem by Yeats, the old man offered me his handkerchief, but we both sat through the prayers unmoved.

Four strong lads carried the coffin down the aisle to the graveyard, where a fresh cleft in the ground was waiting to receive it, just beyond the hedgerows. People arced around it with the breeze whipping their hair. I clustered with the mourners, hanging back. And when the Reverend gave his words of committal and the formalities were done, I threw a fist of soil into the grave and whispered thank you to a box of wood, wondering what Henry might have thought about it all.

Walking back, I saw his widow linking arms with a man I recognised from art school: a thickset fellow named Kerr whom Henry used to tease for painting cats in every mural, regardless of its subject matter (‘Did you never think to ask yourself, Kerr,’ he once said in our weekly crit, ‘whether those wee calicos have any business at a crucifixion?’). Kerr escorted Mrs Holden to one of the black cars near the church gates before I got a chance to introduce myself. Later, in the vestibule, he came to speak with me as I was waiting to sign the condolence book. We smiled at the remembrance of the calicos, and chatted for a while about my new life in London. He seemed only half-interested in my career as a painter but was extremely curious to know how word of the funeral had reached me. ‘Big news, is it, down there?’ he said, smirking. This led us into reminiscing about Henry and his feelings about London — he used to say that it was a city ‘without compassion for the individual’ but encouraged us to experience it if we were serious about becoming artists. ‘Aye, you don’t forget a fella like him,’ Kerr said, with an air of finality. ‘He gave us a job at the School after. Life-modelling. Ha! I was skint at the time, so I couldn’t say no. Haven’t really painted much since those days.’ Kerr had inherited his father’s hardware shop in Bishopbriggs and now ran it with his sister. I told him that sounded like a very nice life, and he said, ‘Pssh. It’s about ten different kinds of hell rolled into one. But it’s a living.’ He offered me a lift to the pub for the wake, and I accepted. ‘Did you sign that yet?’ he asked, pointing to the condolence book. ‘I never know what to write. Maybe you can think of something for us.’

Kerr went off to fetch his car, leaving me in the hush of the vestibule with my suitcase at my heels. Before I wrote my message in the book, I turned back through the pages to check the tenor of the comments — I had never written a condolence before and did not want to draw too much attention to myself. There were a lot of platitudes: Deepest sympathies. Always in our hearts. So many memories. I wanted mine to be more personal. As I searched for a clear space to write, I saw that a page had been turned inwards — creased so that one stumpy half jutted outwards from the spine. I unpicked it. There was another short message there, and a signature:

Paint what you believe.

Thanks for everything you taught me.

Rest in peace, old man.

James Culvers

‘Are we all set then?’ said Kerr.

I did not even realise he was behind me.

He jangled his car keys. ‘We could walk it, mind, but seeing as you’ve got your case. .’ And he stooped to lift it for me. ‘You all right, love? You’re shivering.’